Posts made by panzerpainter

Thanks. I have been known to use pennies as bases too. Especially if you go out an look for something to make bases out of, they all cost more than $0.01 each. Heck, bingo chips work good too, but they cost more than $0.01 too, lol. I paint and use pennies for all sorts of markers, including: Land mines, newly made shell craters, tank obstacle bases, etc. Odds are, whatever you mount on top of the pennies are worth more than the pennies themsleves. Since they arent worth saving to use at the store, I save a HUGE jar of pennies for all sorts of uses (anything except currency). I usually do my war games on 5/8 inch hex maps, and I couldnt get by without all my pennies. I just thought of a new use, too. I like to be able to blow up the buildings I put out on a map, and I bet I could glue thick grey felt to them, and have removable buildings?
  I imiagine your using them for bases also provides a very stable piece, which wont tip over.

These are not AA&M or A&A, but they will be used with those pieces in a hybrid game. Not a whole lot bigger than the infantry in either AA&M or A&A, they have a bit more detail to work with.
  These are examples of my “normal” paint job. Not generic by any means, but rifle stocks, shovel handles, ammo pouches, etc, are only painted a single brown, and not highlighted like I would for the “extra-fine” detail jobs. Faces are painted and flesh-washed, but eye-balls not added. Tiny buckles & buttons not painted, and the extra-tiny insignias left off.

Jackson turrets with thier sides sanded down, gun breeches narrowed, paper sides added, and balsa front added. Rough sanded, putty applied, and final sanding. Balsa counter-weight mounts added, and then the balsa counterweights added. The MGs were left off, as they made the tanks look “chubby”, so crew was added instead. Supplies including camo netting (gauze), ammo boxes (flat plastic), spare wheels (the tiny road wheels robbed from a 1/72 scale churchill) and some other various “supplies” added and held down with inked, super-glued, & varnish soaked thread. Barrels trimmed back also.
   Full decals including single stars on turret & hull sides, full star on hull front, Serial number, unit number, and divisional markings on front.
   Turret “bolts” added by layering tiny beads of dark green paint on top of each other, with smaller dots of lighter green stacked on top. 5 coats of paint droplets on each bolt.
   Individual tread links added to hull sides also.
   Area under hull, between wheels, blacked in. Treads done in black, with sprockets and tread teeth silvered, then rust added along edges (no rust added to weight-bearing area of treads, as those were rubberized). Fender rust added, and weathering applied over decals. Multiple coats of clear (2 coats applied by brush - 3 to 4 coats by decals, and a final coat of spray dullcoat). These 4 tanks have about $5 worth of clear on them, and will withstand all but the very roughest treatment (as long as Tom doesnt let his pet gorillas play with them, he’s OK).

Well, that makes a huige difference, he he. I call it all “A&A” and I guess I should have called one of them AA and the other AAM. You probably thought i was nuts when I stated costs for AAM and you were thinking AA. Well, anyway, give me a holler if you want me to do some up for you, even a small order so you can compare. I’m sure you will find my paint jobs on the smaller scale even par with what I do on the larger scale, inch-per-inch.
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If the pieces are still on the sprues, that would be great, cause I could give them a good scuffing (to break that resinous feeling) before I seperate them. If they are off the sprues, I can still do something to scuff them before I prime them, its just a little bit tougher. But in either case, I would prep them before priming & painting them. It always helps them last much longer.
  But send me a PM, or an e-mail at timdrocks@mchsi.com (e-mail preffered cause I can keep them permanently for records). I’d rather discuss details NOT on the public message boards.

• Jim -

Have we been talking about 2 different scales all along?
I work with the “collectable series” and those would be the prices I have been mentioning all along. But maybe you are referring to the “other” A&A.
(A) Traditional board game pieces: Are you talking about the traditional axis & allies board game pieces? The ones that come with a few sprues of pieces all molded in different colors for each different army? Where tanks and planes are about 3/4 inch long? And ships get maybe just over an inch and a half?
(B) Collectables: The pics I post are of the newer A&A “collectable” series booster packs in 12 / 15mm, with tanks about 3 inches long. Ships from that series get up to 5" long, and planes have a 2" wingspan.

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   If (A) is the case, then I can do ships for $1.25 each (average, with carriers @ $1.75 and transports @ $0.75), tanks and planes for $1 each, and men 5 for $4. Basic insignia and clearcoat included, and they will look goooooood.
   If (B), the bigger tanks almost 3" long, with rotating turrets and details down to the rivets in the road wheels, thier is no way I can do those for a buck or so. They take me at least an hour and a half each if not more for most. And the planes that come in the collectable series are about 2" wingspans and are about as much as a tank to paint. The ships from that series can be anywhere from $4 to $15 to paint, and get up to about 5" long.

@Imperious:

Yikes!

I guess ill stick with my painter. Not as good as you with details but cheaper.

If you can send decals, and want to clearcoat them yourself, I can go down $1 each. Also, I can go down $1 per unit if you want slightly moire “generic” painting (looks same, but without quite so much rust & weathering. So possibility of getting them down to $4 each.
Also, you get them rebarreled to twin guns, and return shipping is on me (those are always free services). With orders of 10 or more units, I also include an extra unit (random) painted up. So hopefully that makes it a pretty good deal.

I hope I dont get in trouble for typing in actual $ amounts, but those were $60 total for all 10, which included return shipping.

Hello,
  After 2 floods, and a reconstructed basement, I am finally back in business. In order to be more competative (I have seen a big drop-off in orders while others are busy) I am offering my usual ultra-fine detail (primed and 3 shades of base color, inked, highlighted, rust, nicks/scrathes, tread and teeth silvering, full decals, and double-coat clear) as well as a more generic painting service for those on a budget (will still rival most other work).
  Here is my latest job, just completed, of hotwheel PzI’s.
  After complete painting, these had all the little nicks, scratches, fender/hull, and exhaust rust, as well as weathering applied over the decals.

To anyone who has wondered where the heck I have gone, and why I am not posting, its due to mother nature. We have already had a years worth of rain so far, and the ground is so saturated that even a slight drizzle causes our basement to flood. Its been completely flooded every weekend, and all I do is clean, clean, clean.

Hey, looks good! I’m a “black & grey guy” myself. Good to see another person posting here.

Not to worry, it wasnt taken as a negative. Over in the “other” forums “scale” is kind of an issue. And an issue that a lot can not agree on.

@dezrtfish:

Wow, that’s bigger than I thought

Well, if A&A changes the scale of thier planes, like they did with the tanks, these planes would be about right. I dont think that is the case so far in the 2.0 release, but then I have not gotten any of the 2.0 scale pieces in except for 1 tank. I do not know if they upscaled the new planes, havent seen one yet.
  I dont think these would be so much bigger that they wouldnt be useable with the other planes from say “reserves”, “D-Day” or other releases.
  I think the biggest problem here is that most of you on this site are used to the boxed board games, and I am used to the A&A “collectables” series. Sometimes I am not sure how to refer to the 2 different Axis & Allies product lines.

Sorry, I keep forgetting to do that. I always wondered how I got my nick-name. Now I know what scatter-brain must mean.
The props on these, I can almost fit 2 of them on a penny. So imagine a penny twice as big as the props.

These are pewter planes, and required a bit of mold line removal, and some sanding, but are very nicely made. I noticed, when referencing Soviet planes, that they did not always have insignias on the tops of thier wings, so I used 2 different insignia configurations to help differentiate between the planes.
  I added spinning props, since these had none.